Darius mumbled something unintelligible in response.
“We have to act,” Ms. Sterling hissed with determination. “Do you understand me? Otherwise we won’t get anything. She’s not stupid. Look how cleverly she twisted things. ‘Sell your condo,’ she says. Easy for her to say when she has everything she needs.”
“So what exactly are you suggesting?”
A heavy pause filled with tension.
Kiana held her breath, her heart pounding.
“I was thinking maybe you could get the PIN code for her bank card,” Ms. Sterling said quietly. “You have access to her purse, right? Check it tonight. The card is in there. Then I’ll withdraw all the money quickly before she even notices anything’s wrong. And in the morning, we’ll just say the card was stolen—maybe on the bus or at the grocery store.”
Silence so thick Kiana could hear her own heartbeat thundering in her ears.
“Are you serious?” Darius’s voice was tense, but not indignant—more intrigued, almost excited.
“Absolutely serious. Listen carefully. She won’t even notice right away because she’s not checking her account every day. She’s got over a hundred and twenty thousand sitting there. What’s the big deal if we take it? We’ll split it later—half for you, half for me. That’s completely fair, right?”
Another pause.
“I don’t know, Mom. That sounds really risky.”
“Risky? What risk is there really? She won’t even figure it out for days. And even if she does somehow, so what? You’ll just say you didn’t know anything about it. You’ll say a hacker compromised the account. That happens all the time these days.”
“What if she calls the bank immediately?”
“So what if she does? The bank will just shrug their shoulders. Security failure, they’ll say. But the card was in her possession. No one but her knew the PIN code. She’ll end up blaming herself for not being more careful. Trust me, it’ll be absolutely fine.”
Kiana slowly, carefully closed the door without making a sound.
Everything inside her had frozen into solid ice.
She wasn’t surprised—not really.
For some reason, she wasn’t surprised at all.
She’d known Ms. Sterling was capable of a lot, but for Darius to actively support it, to go along with stealing from his own wife—that was the real blow.
Not a devastating blow, but a precise one that hit exactly where it would hurt most.
She returned to the bed, sat down carefully, and folded her hands in her lap.
She needed to think clearly, weigh all her options, decide what to do next.
But the decision had essentially been made already, days ago when she’d walked into that bank.
That morning, standing on those bank steps, Kiana had smiled faintly, barely noticeably.
Let them try, she’d thought.
And now they were about to.
